No Rage Greater
by Nerva al'Thor
Summary: [Oneshot][AU][SasoriDeidara] When Deidara, Yondaime Tsuchikage, barely survives from a spying mission in Konoha, Suna's Puppet General confesses his feelings in a red haze of anger and vengeance.


_Co-writted with a friend, _ **Tom Valor**, _and taken from my Sannin RP site. I just can't resist turning it into a one-shot fic. Probably the only time I'll upload something like it._

* * *

"OUT OF MY WAY!"

The nurses, doctors and medic ninjas scattered as Sasori stalked the hall of the Iwa medical center. He presented a terrifying sight; wings spread out and a large, stinger-ended cable portuding several feet from where his stomach was, waving about like a snake waiting to strike. No one got in his way. Two medic nin had been rushed to their own emergency rooms with severe punctures on the stomach. The wounds alone were ghastly without considering the virulent poison by which Sasori dealt death to his foes.

"DEIDARA!"

He slammed the door to the tsuchikage's room wide open. He had been furious when he heard that the rock-head had gone to personally spy on Konoha despite the risks. He had warned him several times not to. The concerned rage boiled more when he heard that Deidara barely escaped with his life after the incident. Reports already mentioned the hokage and an uchiha woman present.

'It's that wench, Uchiha Yukino...Desert sting, I WILL FLAY THE SKIN FROM HER BONES!'

He spotted the tsuchikage, still bandaged up.

"WRETCH! YOU PLAN TO LEAD BY EXAMPLE LIKE THIS!?"

---

"Hurry!"

"He's lost too much blood!"

"I can't stop the bleeding -!"

"EMERGENCY! CALL ALL MEDICS! HURRY!"

Deidara fled in and out of consciousness as he lay on the stretcher, blood gushing out of him like there was no tomorrow. His remaining eye could barely make out the blurry pinpricks of colors of the faces who loomed above him. The pain...

He was out of it most of the time. When he finally opened his eyes, he was in an ICU. He could feel bandages. He couldn't move.

"WRETCH! YOU PLAN TO LEAD BY EXAMPLE LIKE THIS!?"

Sasori-sama? He was still too weak. The pain of the Kusanagi still burned in him...

---

Sasori entered the ICU without any introduction. One medic nin tried to stop him but he struck the man on the face; wooden fingers leaving horrid gouges on the man's cheeks. The stinger wrapped around another medic nin administering to the tsuchikage and hurled him bodily outside the room.

"LEAVE HIM BE, YOU NODDING-DONKEYS! YOU FAILED YOUR MISSIONS WHEN YOU AGREED TO HIS HARE-BRAINED SPYING SCHEME WITHOUT SENDING AT LEAST ONE MEDIC TO ACCOMPANY HIM!"

Everyone fled the room. The stinger wrapped around Deidara's torse and lifted him several feet into the air and right in front of Sasori. A flick of a hand brought for a summoning scroll. Another flick brought forth six hitokugutsu; each one performing a powerful healing jutsu it still remembered in life. The formed a circle around them before beginning the healing ritual.

Sasori was still livid but his voice had lowered to something barely above a whisper. A gentle hissing of a furious scorpion...

"So, Deidara...how'd it go with your spying mission hmm...see anything you like?"

The stinger squeezed tighter. Not aggravating injuries but enough to add some pain to emphasize Sasori's words.

---

Deidara opened and closed his eye blearily. _Sasori-sama...I was so scared... _He remembered Orochimaru's golden eyes. Those golden eyes that spelled his death...

He could feel Sasori's stinger around him. Deidara winced. It hurt...and the puppeteer lifted him up. Hitokugutsu appeared and started to heal him...Deidara could only shut his eyes in pain. Whatever the Kusanagi had in its blade was resisting the healing. It hurt.

"So, Deidara...how'd it go with your spying mission hmm...see anything you like?"

The stinger tightened around him. He tried to speak.

"Y-yame...ro..."

_I know I've been stupid. I should have run! I should have run!_

Again, those glaring golden eyes.

---

"I WILL NOT STOP!"

He shouted again before lowering his voice. The wounds were hardly responding. It figured that Kusanagi dealt the worst blows a sword could. He had to control his stinger lest he crushed Deidara in a fury.

_'Orochimaru...I should have skewered him when we fought during the Suna-Konoha war...'_

He brought out four more hitokugutsu to assist. A lot of medic nins had wanted him dead since he robbed graves to strengthen his arsenal. As a result, he had plenty of medics among his hitokugutsu.

"Answer me, Deidara...I told you not to go there. You didn't listen...why did you go there...?"

The stinger squeezed a little tighter. Not enough to disrupt breathing. Just enough to bend Deidara's ribs a bit...he deserved it.

---

In and out of consciousness. Deidara had never been scared all of his life. The Kusanagi's venom coursed through him angrily, mirroring the hate of the man who inflicted the wound to him. And then, somehow...the venom was retreating...he couldn't know for sure...it hurt...

"Answer me, Deidara...I told you not to go there. You didn't listen...why did you go there...?"

He could feel some of his ribs bending... was Sasori-sama going to kill him?

He was still a kid after all. He could cry in front of Sasori.

"I just...wanted...to...to...see...the...pattern..." He choked out. The pattern of the scouting. Yes. Orochimaru had worked a complicated pattern in there. "...I was...so...scared...his...eyes!" He gave a sob. "...so...scared..."

---

Something in Sasori wanted to relent when the boy cried in his grip. He knew what that part was. It was the only organic part left in his body.

His heart.

His heart wasn't going to win this time. He wasn't done yet. Let Deidara mewl on about fearful eyes. He had greater things to fear. He feared death, the enemy of all lasting beauty. The one thing that Sasori truly feared and hated was loss. If the tsuchikage could make him remember the fear of loss so casually then, Desert sting, he was was willing to squeeze out some pain and tears from the boy.

"You were scared because you were alone, Deidara. You're not alone now and, by God, I'll kill him if we cross paths again."

He squeezed ever slightly so tighter, wringing out some pain from the boy to ease his own anguish. He whispered again; a scorpion still in the ravages of his fury. A fury meant to banish fear.

"Your fear is nothing, Deidara! Nothing compared to mine!"

"You were scared because you were alone, Deidara. You're not alone now and, by God, I'll kill him if we cross paths again."

---

Deidara just cried. He hadn't cried like this since his father told him to get the job for Kage. His father who taught him the arts and then for no reason at all told him to stop working with his own art. What kind of justice was that? All his father had been after was for their family's glory. And now, Deidara kept messing up as a Kage. He was unconsciously messing his job as a form of revenge for his father. The one who tried to kill the artist in him. True, he could have sent some Jounins to unravel that pattern Orochimaru made. But he wanted to do it himself. He wanted to mess up on purpose. And maybe he would get demoted. And maybe he could go back to his art again.

Sasori-sama squeezed again. "Your fear is nothing, Deidara! Nothing compared to mine!"

The sixteen-year-old blinked to clear tears away. "Stop...it..." He choked out. "Let me go." He wasn't there. How could he have known that? The fear... "Just...let...me go..."

It would have been better if Orochimaru killed him. He would have been fleeting. One moment there, one moment gone. Fleeting. Ethereal.

---

"NEVER! I WILL NEVER LET YOU GO!"

He slammed him against a wall, letting the concrete crack from the force. He could affort more violent gestures now. The wounds were closing and the hitokugutsu could handle a few measly bruises. He walked forward; grasping Deidara's clothes with both hands and bringing both of them at eye-level. He stared down Deidara's fearful eyes, glaring at blue orbs and daring them to look away.

"Years ago, when I met you in a mission, you inflicted on me a grievous wound that will never go away. You became my friend, something I wished I never had..."

He grasped the boy tighter; a mere metaphor on how he grasped all things important.

"When that happened, you became part of those I swore I will never let go. Never! Not even death can deny me! Not death and not some snake with a sword! I swear it! If you make me let go...I swear, I will get you back; just as I will get those most precious to me back. Do you understand your friend, Deidara?"

---

"NEVER! I WILL NEVER LET YOU GO!"

Sasori-sama flung him and he crashed into the wall. Deidara spewed out blood. He didn't move. And then Sasori-sama grabbed him. Red eyes glared into his own, both natural and robotic.

"Years ago, when I met you in a mission, you inflicted on me a grievous wound that will never go away. You became my friend, something I wished I never had..."

Deidara only blinked blearily. The puppeteer's hold on his hospital clothes tightened.

"When that happened, you became part of those I swore I will never let go. Never! Not even death can deny me! Not death and not some snake with a sword! I swear it! If you make me let go...I swear, I will get you back; just as I will get those most precious to me back. Do you understand your friend, Deidara?"

"I want to die." Deidara said. More tears. "I just want to die, go away and leave me alone! The Raikage should have left me there to die! GO AWAY!" He said, giving the puppeteer a shove. "Leave me alone! LEAVE ME!"

---

"I won't let you...do you still hear me under that pathetic angst you're burying yourself under, Deidara? I won't let you!"

He didn't let go. The shove bounced off his mechanized chest with barely an effect. He grasped the clothes tightly until his fingers dug into the boy's body. He gripped with the intensity of his obsession. Yes, he knew he was obsessed. He knew it and reveled in it. Death was the one to lose to this obsession, not the other way around.

"I will tear that hokage apart, as I should have when I drove Hiruko's sting into his vile gut. I will make it rain blood in Konoha, Iwa and Kumo if I must. I WILL NEVER LET YOU GO!"

---

"I won't let you...do you still hear me under that pathetic angst you're burying yourself under, Deidara? I won't let you!"

Wooden fingers dug into him. It was hurting him more than his wound.

"Let...me...go..." Deidara grunted.

"I will tear that hokage apart, as I should have when I drove Hiruko's sting into his vile gut. I make it rain blood in Konoha, Iwa and Kumo if I must. I WILL NEVER LET YOU GO!"

"Let...go..." Deidara said. "You're...hurting...me..." And then he gave a harsh laugh. "What...you'll turn me into a puppet...if I...die?" He laughed and laughed.

"Let me go. Or I blow us up."

---

The moment Deidara uttered those words, he suddenly grasped the boy's hand. Quickly, he pulled out a kunai and drove it down the open mouth; twisting it viciously as he struck. The kunai was poisoned like most edges he had with him. This one was only coated with a minor poison designed to inflict more pain and paralyzing the appendage at the same time.

"Don't drive me like this...you know how far I'm willing to go."

He growled the words out. Furious intensity prevented him from speaking any louder.

"I'd cut your hands off if you tried to blow us up and, yes, I will turn you into a puppet. Just as I turned them into puppets to kindle the hope that they will live again someday."

He still stared at the boy, matching threats with intensity.

"I can inflict the pain of hell if you force me too. I threw away my humanity to fuel the chance that they will live. I can throw away kindness, gentleness whatever that holds me from my goal. All these things I will throw away so that you can live..."

His lips nearly curved upward in a slight smile.

"You know I'll do it. Yes, you do. If you don't value your life, I don't care. I do. Your life, their lives. That's all that matters. Anything else can burn through my sting's poison..."

---

The kunai drove into his hand mouth and twisted. Blood came out. Deidara spasmed wildly under the puppeteer's vicious grip.

"Don't drive me like this...you know how far I'm willing to go."

Deidara let out a scream.

"I'd cut your hands off if you tried to blow us up and, yes, I will turn you into a puppet. Just as I turned them into puppets to kindle the hope that they will live again someday."

He struggled, to no avail. He was still weak.

"I can inflict the pain of hell if you force me too. I threw away my humanity to fuel the chance that they will live. I can throw away kindness, gentleness whatever that holds me from my goal. All these things I will throw away so that you can live..."

Another scream, louder. He could no longer see things around him.

"You know I'll do it. Yes, you do. If you don't value your life, I don't care. I do. Your life, their lives. That's all that matters. Anything else can burn through my sting's poison..."

His chest wound reopened, and a fresh patch of red bloomed on his hospital clothes.

"I'd like to see you try..." he said. "And when I live...I'll kill myself...again..."

He poured all of his remaining strength into his left hand and slammed it into the side of the puppeteer's head. And then blackness swallowed him once more.

And then there was nothing.

---

The slap itself was not painful. It felt like a child's petulant slap against the stiff wood of his face. Still, his vision exploded in the red haze of fresh rage when it struck him.

"Then I'll bind you...bind you so you can only look on. Even if you kill yourself then, I'll bring you back! I'll make the process as hellish as possible! Enough to make Orochimaru seem nothing more than a little girl with a rusted razor shoved down his throat!"

The red haze increased when the tsuchikage's eyes closed in a faint. The hitokugutsu were quick to see to the reopened wound and close it. The vicious bite in Kusanagi's strike had faded and the wounds were easily closing now. He lifted the unconscious boy and slammed him against the opposite wall. Then he picked him up and hurled him against a cabinet; sending bottles and instruments crashing to the floor.

"And I'll bring you back over and over again, BECAUSE THAT'S HOW MUCH AND HOW CASUALLY YOU DRIVE ME, DEIDARA!"

He picked the unconscious boy up again and hurled him against a corner. The rage had not cooled down. He had both healed the boy and given him fresh injuries. At least, he'd live. He approached one medic nin as he left the room.

"BIND HIM! If he dies, then this center, and all of Iwa for that matter, will be a scene of slaughter!"

The boy was unconscious but he had never appeared more dead to Sasori. The scorpion will get his vengeance for this insult and for his loss.

_Vengeance for Deidara..._

He left, making his way for Konoha.


End file.
